Thursday, January 27, 2011

When I happened to chance upon this dried shrimp cookies at Daily Delicious, I immediately know that I am going to try this recipe. I love cookies that are salty sweet and since dear daughter love dried shrimp, she can eat it even before cooking so I assumed she will like these cookies too.

Tell you, the pipping of the dough is not a joke, dunno is it my problem but to me, it was so so tedious. It was not like pipping out whipping cream or butter cream, smooth and easy, I need to use a lot of strength for squeezing and pressing the dough in order to pipe it out. It took me so long to pipe out just a small amount of the dough, I need to rest after every each session as my hands were way too tire. The pressing and squeezing of the dough also caused the oil to seep out, my hands and the pipping bag were so oily. Argh, I almost gave up half way, to be exact, one quarter way :P.

If you are interested, you may refer to Daily Delicious for the step to step photos.

Method :
1. Preheat oven to 180°C and line the baking sheet with baking paper or silpat.
2. Combine the flour and dried shrimp in a bowl, and put in the food processor, process until fine. Set aside.
3. Beat the butter and sugar until blend, add a dash of salt (Note: you have to taste the shrimp first, if it's very salty, you might omit the salt here - for me I omitted it).
4. Put the egg into the bowl and beat until combine, then add the vanilla.
5. Pour the flour mixture into the bowl, mix with the spatula until combine.
6. Put the dough into the piping bag fit with 1 cm round nozzle.
7. Pipe the dough into 5cm small finger.
8. Bake the cookies for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown.
9. Let the cookies cool on the wire rack.

Verdict?
The cookies are salty sweet, tasted hint of dried shrimp, very addictive snack that once you start, is hard to stop snacking. When I popped one into dear daughter's mouth, her eyes opened wide immediately when she munched the cookie. She kept munching and at the same time nodding her head, gave me a thumb up and asked me for some more. However, I dun think I will make it again, although it is yummy but the pipping is really back me off, too time consuming and tedious.

I would like to thanks The Art to Being Perfect for being so generous to share this Stylish Blogger award with me, I am so happy and felt so honor to be able to received this award from her. Thank you so much, I am really very appreciated.

Monday, January 24, 2011

During one of the outing, dear brother was looking at the leaflet from Coffee Bean and eyeing on the oreo cheesecake. I told him I will bake one for him, I fulfilled my promised and baked this oreo chocolate cheesecake for his birthday.

I love the rich, creamy and chocolatey chocolate cheesecake that I baked previously so I decided to bake it again and add in oreo cookies.

Method:
1. Melt the butter and mix together to the crushed oreo cookies. Press the mixture into the cake pan base and chilled for later use.
2. Heat up the whipping cream and add in the chopped chocolate and stir till mix well and smooth.
3. Preheat the oven to 160°C. Pour some water to the base of the baking tray to create a water-bath. Wrap the base of the cake pan with aluminum foil to protect the water from sipping in.
4. In a mixing bowl, beat the cream cheese and sugar till fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat again till combined.
5. Add chocolate mixture and stir well. Lastly, sift in the cocoa powder and crushed oreo cookies, and combine till mixture is smooth.
6. Pour the cheesecake batter into the prepared cake pan with the cookie base. Bake in the oven for 45 to 50 minutes (I baked the round cake for 35 to 40 mins. Make sure not to over bake, the center of the cake should still be a little "wobbly" when done.
7. Remove from oven and let cool for awhile.
8. Boil the chocolate, whipping cream and butter until mix well and smooth.
9. Pour onto the cake and let it cool completely before refrigerating. Chill for at least 4 to 6 hrs before serving.
10. Decorate the cake as your desire.

Verdict?
The cake is rich, creamy and chocolately, tasted so heavenly especially if you are using premium chocolate. The chocolate ganache tasted slightly bitter but it complement so well with the chocolate cheese layer. A non cheesecake person like dear husband, praised so much on this cake and even serve himself 2nd slice.

Thursday, January 20, 2011

I have a packet of white chocolate chips to clear off so was looking around for bakes with white chocolate, I then remember I had bookmarked this caramel mud cake from Ellie. Since I have all the ingredients at home, I went ahead to bake this cake and of course, my cake dun look as nice and delicious as Ellie's but the taste definitely is as good :).

Method
1. Preheat oven to 160C. Grease and line base and side with non-stick baking paper.
2. Place butter, chocolate, sugar, water, golden syrup and vanilla essence/extract in a heavy-based saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat with a wooden spoon for 5 mins or until chocolate melts and mixture is smooth. Set aside for 20 mins to cool.
3. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
4. Sift combined flours over chocolate mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until well combined.
5. Pour mixture into pan and bake in preheated oven for 50-60 mins or until a skewer comes out almost clean.
6. Stand cake for 20 mins before turning onto a wire rack to cool.

Verdict?
The cake is dense and moist, sweetness just nice for me and the taste is great, it has the fragrant taste of white chocolate and caramel. I recieved compliments on this cake and especially dear brother likes it lot.

Monday, January 17, 2011

After the both attempt of barbie doll cake, big and smaller version, I have more confidence to bake another better and improve version for dear daughter's birthday celebration during her actual birthday. However, I was surprised that she actually rejected to have barbie doll cake. When I asked her why, her replied was she doesn't want to dirty her barbie doll again, she doesn't want her barbie doll to take "shower" again :(. Gosh! she is really so "niao " (fussy)....

When I asked her what cake she want then, she requested for flower shape cake and she named all her requests. I was having headache when hearing that, trying to persuade her to look at barbie doll cake but she was very persistance on her choice. Well, what a mum can do since can't convince her daughter so I gave in and promised to give her a flower shape cake she want.

I cannot find flower shape cake pan in Phoon Huat and do not want to waste $ and storage space to the equipement that hardly will be used. Thus I decided to bake a 10" round cake and trim the edge into petal shape. However things didn't work out as my plan, when I trimmed the cake, I realised the cake will be too small and insufficient to feed 15 mouths, the no. of guests that will be celebrating dear daughter's birthday.

I was panic and headache, squeezing all my brain juice and finally, decided to bake some cupcakes to put around the round cake to act as petals. The cake became so huge after adding the cupcakes but more better than less that insufficient to serve the guests.

The cake didn't come out nice after I frosted a layer of whipped cream , the petals dun look equal and balance and the whole cake just dun look exactly like a flower. Especially the side of the cake. I just can't frost it smooth due to my lousy frosting skill so I had no choice, use the back of a spoon to create the spiky look.

I felt so stressed and depressed, I really cannot imagine presenting such an ugly cake to the guests :(. But I consoled myself that the cake might look alright after I pipe the star patterns to cover the surface of the cake. True enough, piping of patterns really can cover most of the flaws of the cake :). At least, I felt so relief and can smile throughout the day heeheehee...

Dear daughter also requested to have stem and leaves for the flower shape cake, so I used flour + water + some green coloring to make dough and shaped a stem and two leaves.

Dear husband said the cake look beautiful and dear daughter love the cake. Sshe said it is exactly what she want, she was so happy. When I shown the cake photos to my friends, all of them were so impressed.

Method:
1. Sift cake flour with cornflour, baking powder and cocoa powder.
2. Whisk egg white until soft peak forms and then add in sugar gradually and whisk till sugar dissolved and mixture is thick and glossy.
3. Drop in egg yolks, one at a time, making that it's evenly combined before the next addition.
4. Fold in 1/2 of flour mixture and mix well.
5. Pour in oil and milk, mix well, fold in the balance flour mixture and mix till well combine.
6. Pour the mixture into round cake tin and bake in pre-heat oven at 175C for about 45 mins or till skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
7. Leave cake to cool on a wire rack.

Beat whipping cream and pink coloring until stiff.
Take out a bowl of pink whipped cream and mix in blue coloring to become purple whipped cream.

Assembly :
1. Slice cake into 3 and apply chocolate butter cream onto each layer. (As I had trimmed the cake initially for the petals, I just trimmed the whole cake into 8" round shape)
2. Slice the cupcakes into half and apply chocolate butter cream.
3. Place the 12 cupcakes surrounded the 8" round cake.
4. Frost the cake with pink whipping cream.
5. Decorate the cake as your desire.

Verdict?The cake is soft and fluffy, tasted really delicious with the oreo chocolate butter cream. My elder SIL likes the crunchiness of oreo in the chocolate butter cream, she said the oreo given the extra "bites" and added marks to the cake. Dear daughter loves the cake, she ate 2 slices of the remaining cake the next day and even asked for it for the next few days. However the cupcakes tasted a bit dry, probably I had slightly overbaked.

Friday, January 14, 2011

When I saw the posting from Jess (Ya another Jess :p) that she will be hosting for Aspiring Bakers #3 for January 2011, although the lazy bud still cling tightly on me, I told myself I must bake some cookies to give her support. I did not have hard time thinking of what cookies to bake for this event, my priority definitely goes to the coconut butter cookies that I always wanted to bake since the 1st time saw it at Dodol & Mochi.

Pei Lin misread the recipe and used coconut cream powder instead of dessicated coconut called by the original recipe. For me, I intended to use both dessicated coconut and coconut cream powder but during the preparation of ingredients I then realised I had used up the packet of coconut ceam powder so left me only with 25g of dessicated coconut from my other bakes for this round of baking.

My cookies are not as flat as Pei Lin's cookies, the color of the cookies also not as golden and attractive as hers. I guess my oven's temperature is higher that the base of the cookies are much more darker, nearly look charred :P.

Method :
1. Whisk (A) together thoroughly, then set aside for use later.
2. Place (B) into a medium-sized mixing bowl, then blend the ingredients together slightly with help from a rubber spatula. Now, with an electric hand mixer, cream them up on high speed till pale and fluffy (i.e. buttercream-like consistency).
3. With a rubber spatula or sturdy (wooden) spoon, gradually fold to mix the flour mixture into the creamed mixture, in two or three batches, till a dough has just formed – DON’T overwork the dough as you may risk getting tough cookies in the end.
4. Wrap the dough up in plastic film, then let it chill and rest in the fridge for about 30 minutes. (I left the dough in a bowl and cover with cling wrap and kept in the fridge for about 2 hrs)
5. Remove the dough from the fridge. Then, scoop out 15 or 10 grams of dough for each cookie and roll it into a ball. Place the shaped cookie dough on parchment-lined baking sheet(s), leaving about 4 centimeters apart in between the cookies. The dough will spread during baking. Repeat till the dough is used up.
6. First, bake at 160°C for about 25 minutes. After that, turn off the oven and leave the cookies inside, with the oven door shut, for about 10 minutes.
7. Remove the cookies from the oven, and transfer them to cooling rack(s) to let cool.

Verdict?
The cookies are crunchy and crispy, I might have overwork the dough that the cookies are a bit hard, nevertheless they are still delicious and addictive. The only down side of the cookies are the coconut taste is very very mild which I will prefer to be stronger but I love the crunchiness of dessicated coconut during the munching of cookies. Next time, I will definitely use both coconut cream powder and dessicated coconut and probably increase the amount to try it out again.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Happy New Year to my readers, friends and fellow bloggers, sorry for being late cos it has been hectic weeks for me due to the festive celebration and gathering, I was very busy with work too due to the year end closing and on top of that, there was an exciting event, a "Big" day of dear daughter on 4th Jan 2011, the 1st day of her primary school life! I was on leave for her 1st 3 days of school, sent her to & fro school, visited her during recess time, attended the parenting talks that organised by the school, these 3 days were so jam packed but just gone within blink of eyes, so fast! I am glad that dear daughter can adapt to her new school life and enjoying herself in school :).

I am kind of lazed out too during this period, lazy to log on to computer after work, have not been doing any baking too :P. Frankly speaking, it took a bit of effort for me to post this up, if not because today is the 1st anniversary of my blog, I guess I may continue to laze heeheehee... Happy 1st Blogoversary to Bakericious! I am really glad that my passion of blogging is able to "survive" and last for a year and hope I will be able to keep it on-going and regularly although a lot of efforts needed especially for lazy person like me :P. I would like to thanks all the readers and followers of my blog for visiting reguarly and leaving lovely and encouraging comments that always motivate me to keep posting and also keeping this blog alive. Thank you for all the support!

Well, back to my bakes. Last year when I made a princess castle cake for dear daughter's birthday, SK requested one for her birthday as well. So I had foreseen that SK will request for a barbie doll cake for her birthday if she see the barbie doll cake that I made for dear daughter and true enough :). I accepted her order forgetting I will have a very hectic schedule during that week. Well, since I had made my commitment, I will have to fullfil it by hook or by crook.

Due to space contraints for storage and also SK do not need a big cake, so I need to make a small version of barbie doll cake for her. I had headache on how to make this cake as even I can bake a smaller cake but I can't reduce the height of the cake, the cake need to be tall enough to cover till the waist of barbie doll. In order to store the cake in the fridge, I need to remove 2 shelves from the fridge which is not possible cos MIL had bought a lot of food that need to store in the fridge, the most I can remove is one shelve. I kept thinking of a lot of alternatives but seem not suitable until I found out that dear daughter has a "imitation" barbie doll that dunno who bought as a gift for her, which is shorter than original barbie doll.

After I inserted the doll in the cake and put it in the fridge, I then realised the cake was still too high to store in the fridge. Gosh! What should I do? I removed the doll, trying to bend the legs of doll then I realised the lower part of the body can be dismantled. I was so happy, dismantled it and left only the upper part of body, insert back to the cake but the hole of the cake was too big due to my earlier adjustment so the doll actually sunken in that caused the gown looking like a high waist gown heeheehee... dear daughter said this barbie doll look so fat hahaha... Luckily Sk still very happpy and love this cake :).

Method:1. Put the pot on the fire, pour in the oil immediately to heat up and off the fire when the oil start to warm.
2. Add in the cocoa powder and stir well to dissolve the cocoa powder with oil and set aside.
3. Mix eggs, sugar, salt in the mixing bowl and whisk in high speed till thick and creamy, increase the volume unitl the color turn pale.
4. Add in glucose and whisk in medium speed until ribbon stage.
5. Mix in the sifted flour and baking soda, whisk in low speed for 3 circles to let the flour mix into the egg mixture. Then turn to medium speed and whisk for about 20 circles (about 20 seconds) to mix well.
6. Fold 1/3 to 1/2 of the batter into cocoa mixture and mix well. Pour the mixture back to the remaining batter, add in milk to mix well.
7. Pour the batter in the cake tin till 60-70% full.
8. Bang the cake tin on the table lightly to reduce some air.
9. Bake at lower heat 160 degree upper heat 180 degree for 35 mins.
10. Once done, remove from oven and turn the cake tin upside down on wire rack for it to cool down.
11. When the cake is cool, press round the top side of the cake and push up the bottom plate to remove the cake.
12. Press round the bottom of the cake to remove the cake from the bottom plate.

To Assemble :
1. Slice the cooled cake into 3 layers.
2. Place one layer on the turntable/cake board and brush with some cherry syrup.
3. Spread whipped cream and scatter pitted cherries over it.
4. Place the second layer and spread the whipped cream and scatter the pitted cherries.
5. Set the third layer of sponge on top of it and spread top and sides of cake with remaining cream.
6. Insert the doll in the center of the cake.
7. Decorate the gown cake as desire.